Visual Storytelling

Turn photos into stories that grab your target audience’s attention in seconds

You can tell a whole story in an instant with a single photo. And, in a world where we need to grab our audiences’ attention in less than 2 seconds, an instant is really all you get. The visual stories we tell can make or break an entire campaign. It’s what draws our target audience’s attention and leads them to learn more about our offer. It’s also our first, and most lasting impression. So ask yourself:

“What stories are you telling with your photography? Are you even speaking to the right people?”

Yes, photography for a professional campaign needs to be eye-catching. But if you’re catching the wrong viewer's eye, the results can be devastating. It’s like getting in a room full of dog lovers and talking about cats. You might end up provoking the wrong emotion from your audience if you’re not careful!

START HERE: Download this free guide

Before we can get started with the visual elements of a campaign, it’s important to break down who your target audience is beyond just their age and gender. Do you know their goals and fears? Are you following what’s trending within their communities? You can gather this information from surveys and focus groups, and you can also use AI to help with this research. We also like to utilize Facebook groups because they can be really niched down and specific to our target audiences. It’s also helpful to follow influencers that share your target audience to stay on top of what’s trending. 

Not only is it crucial to understand who your target audience is, you also need to know what your company’s relationship is to its target audience. How will you guide them to success? Are you their friend or a mentor? The more you know about this relationship, the better you can craft imagery that truly speaks to them in the right voice for your brand. For example: We know that our target audience often needs headshots - and they don’t just want standard, corporate headshots in front of a plain background. They’re looking for something that showcase’s their brand’s personality and helps them stand out from their competition. So, we’re going to show you an example of an image like that below. This headshot is for Influencer/model Jesyka Harris who is just about to launch her first book and needed a headshot for the book cover.

KEY ELEMENTS TO STORYTELLING WITH MARKETING VISUALS

Before moving through these next steps, take some time to create an audience persona using the free guide you’ve downloaded. You can easily do this using AI such as Chat GPT. The more information you can give to create this audience persona, the more accurate it will be. Once this step is done, keep this persona in mind as you move through each element listed below.

Mood

Based on your target audience’s fears and goals, what is the mood for your campaign? Will they be more attracted to photos that share a positive outcome based on their goals, or a more empathetic campaign that brings to light their fears or struggles? And which approach aligns best with your brand’s image? Conducting this market research is an integral part of the development of an effective visual campaign and may require further AB testing or focus groups. Setting the mood for your campaign and diving into what emotions you’d like your audience to experience when looking at your visuals will shape almost every other choice you make for your campaign. 

Colors

Dig deeper than basic color psychology. Create a complimentary color palette that incorporates your brand colors while also reflecting the mood of your campaign. For example, if you're creating a campaign around your audience’s end-results, and your desired emotion is happiness, you might consider a color palette that is bright and vibrant. As opposed to an empathetic campaign that allows an audience to feel seen in their fears or struggles. In this case you might choose something more muted. You’ll use the palette you’ve created when choosing both the wardrobe and location for your shoot.  An unlikely source for picking the colors for your visual campaign: interior designers - especially those not afraid to use color in their designs! 

ACTIVITY

Mood Board

Pull together images that fit what you’ve discovered so far. You can use people, places, and objects you know your target audience resonates with. These don’t have to be directly related to your company. Pulling from sources outside of your industry can help your brand stand out from your competitors. Piece together your color palette and include it in your board as well. We like to also create a Pinterest board of photos we can use as inspiration during our photoshoot (note: while we use these images to lead and inspire us throughout our shoot, we will not copy another artist’s work).   

Location

Choosing a location is a chance to combine your brand image with the elements we’ve discussed above. In addition to mood and color, you’ll need to consider what’s trending with your ideal target audience. Gathering information from influencers that target the same audience as you is a great place to start brainstorming potential shoot locations. Budget often plays a huge role as well, so taking some time to research pricing for different locations will help to narrow down your choices. If we don’t have an iconic location in mind already, our first place to check out is usually Peerspace. We’ll also often ask local businesses to work with us. Depending on the client and the location, we can sometimes strike a collaborative deal with these locations to shoot during slower times, or we offer to pay to rent the space during off hours. If you’re considering a public space such as a beach or a park for your shoot, make sure to check with the city for laws around usage of the space - depending on the size of your shoot, you will likely need extra licensing and insurance. 

Wardrobe

While style is the most obvious aspect of wardrobe selection, it’s important to keep in mind your color palette and how it plays with the location you’ve chosen as well. This is why we love working with interior designers when creating a color palette. They’re able to look at the big picture and suggest colors for wardrobe that work well with the location. This allows our subject to stand out, without sticking out. The wardrobe you choose for your shoot in simply just another element that adds to your photography's story. It is not the main character(unless you are selling clothing that is). So make sure that it doesn't distract from the main focus of the shoot. Common ways that wardrobe tends to steal the spotlight is with distracting patterns and colors. Another problem we often run into is ill-fitting attire - clothing should be neither too big, nor too small and should not be used to hide behind.

NOTE: If you're feeling uncomfortable about being in front of the camera, communicate this discomfort to your photographer. We are our own biggest critics! Without this open communication, photographers often don't know there is something you're uncomfortable with. Utilizing this knowledge, we have specific tools such as posing and high-end retouching that will help generate beautiful images that you're confident to use for your marketing!

Lighting

Lighting is quite possibly the most important element to telling a story in photography. If you’re looking for something more moody or dramatic, you’d want to utilize side lighting with lots of shadows and highlights so you can draw attention to what’s in the light and create mystery around what’s in the shadows. If you’re looking for something more fresh and friendly, you’d want clean, even lighting. Minimizing shadows is like telling your audience, “we have nothing to hide!” Alternatively, if you’re looking for something dreamy or romantic, you might play around with more back lighting. In addition to capturing emotion, you also need to remain on brand. For lifestyle brands, we like to use a mixture of natural light and video light because it keeps the lighting soft and it feels more authentic and believable. As opposed to brands that need a very buttoned-up and professional presence. In this case, we’d use flash to keep the light clean and crisp. 

Editing

Editing will absolutely make or break your final visuals. Just like fashion, editing styles can trend as well. Depending on your target audience, you might want to embrace these trends, keep your editing timeless and traditional, or break the mold all together and trailblaze a new style. When deciding on your editing style, a few things to consider are temperature (do you want your images to seem more cool, warm, or neutral), brightness, contrast, and vibrance. If your brand doesn’t have a preferred style for their editing just yet, make sure to get one dialed in with your photographer before post production so that all of your photos have the same, branded look throughout your entire campaign. You can do this by choosing 3-5 images from your campaign and requesting edits in different styles. Seeing these images side by side is an effective way to narrow your choices down until you’re sure you’ve found the perfect fit for your brand. You can also refer to your mood board to reinforce and finalize your decision. 

BONUS: SEO Infusion

If you're using your photos online, then the final step to making sure the right people see your visual stories is to infuse them with relevant keywords you know your target audience is searching for. This is something we do for all of our clients and it’s really simple. We use Adobe Lightroom to export our clients’ photos because it allows us to easily infuse SEO rich keywords as well. But you can also easily do this by naming your file with SEO rich words and separating each word with a hyphen. 

Need more help collaborating on your next photoshoot? Contact us here to see if our services are a good match for your visual marketing needs.